Mediaboss Marketing

Identifying the most effective metrics and prioritising the right opportunities for your marketing spend will help you to make the strategic decisions that will drive brand growth, even in an uncertain economic climate.

We explored how proactively investing in brand tracking can help you navigate risksduring an economic downturn. Now, its time to ensure you get more bang for your buck. Let us walk you through the importance of understanding your brand performance and how to use brand trackingto ensure your business remains successful throughout any recession or when facing headwinds.

Evidence from one of our clients during the last recession shows just how important the right marketing investment is to grow your brand. During the 2008 recession, a leading premium chocolate brand was facing pressure from its global headquarters to reduce its media budget by 40% following a weak sales season. However, based on evidence from their Kantar brand guidance programme, our client increased media pressure relative to competitors and achieved stronger communications awareness than all other brands (premium and non-premium).

And our tracking database shows that when brands (at least) maintain their communications awareness, all other brand measures hold up.

Based on our experience, this is how understanding brand performance can lead to brand growth:

The reality is, in times of economic downturn, it takes courage and vision to increase your marketing spend. However, with the right brand monitoring tools, you can start marketing on a budget that works for you, whilst maximising your marketing spend ROI.

Here are some examples of how successful brands use brand tracking to maximise their ROI and drive brand growth.

The right metrics allow brands to steer their marketing strategies to reach and appeal to their target audience. They focus on the needs of the business, aligning metrics with specific goals. For example, if you are a small brand with tight budgets you should focus on campaigns that create brand awareness and use media that is super targeted to your potential customers, to generate short-term wins. Your tracking metrics should then align to these business objectives.

Tip: Investment in digital marketing continues to increase. With brand health tracking, you can identify missing opportunities so that your brand can drive growth by focussing on the right channels. This means you can allocate the correct amount of marketing spend to these areas and avoid spreading your brand budget too thinly and slowing your brand growth.

With the right brand tracking tools, brands understand both the live, in-market impact and the reasons for specific market reactions. This helps them modify their campaign approach and ensure their marketing strategy is bolstered by the content consumers encounter.

Tip: Real-time data can solve some of your problems. As a marketer, you also need to know what to do and where to tweak your campaign. Kantar brand trackingtools will give you the right metrics to assess campaign performance, identify the weak creative and course correct to meet your goals. Reliable metrics can provide the signposts you need to allocate your resources and set you up for success.

When you are planning your marketing spendduring an economic crisis, the main challenge is to make your investment go as far as possible. Success comes from connecting your actions from a holistic point of view, ensuring a seamless campaign without the need for big budgets or data blending.

Consider these brand tracking essentials to maximise your marketing spend ROI:

Now you have all essentials for marketing on a budget. Find out how successful brands use the Kantar brand tracking and brand guidance systemsto ensure their marketing spend goes further - even in times of economic turmoil. Get in touchto find out more.

Go here to see the original:
Brand tracking essentials: Using brand insight to maximise ... - Kantar UK Insights